The Occupation of Norway

The occupation of Norway in the spring
of 1940 by Nazi Germany was swift and decisive. The
German army quickly swept through Norway and in one month established its rule
there. Its one weak area in the whole campaign was that many German troops had
to be landed by sea and the control of the sea around Norway’s coast was
vital.

General von Falkenhorst
- Germany's
overall planner in Norway

The Royal Navy had
attempted to fight the German landing fleets at Bergen and Trondheim. However, a
clash with the German air force led to damage to the battleship ‘Rodney’
when it was hit by a 500-kg bomb. Though it failed to explode, damage was done
to the battleship. A destroyer was lost and three cruisers were also damaged.
This convinced the Admiralty that the ships in the area should withdraw and any
attacks on German forces attacking Bergen were cancelled.

British submarines operating in the
waters south of Norway were more successful in harassing the Germans. The
Germans lost the cruiser ‘Karlsruhe’ and the ‘Lützow’ was badly damaged
in another submarine attack. The activities of British submarines did a great
deal to hinder the activities of German ships moving along the Norwegian coast,
but they could never fully stop them. On April 10th, 1940,
Skua planes from the Fleet Air Arm sunk the light cruiser ‘Königsberg’. On
the same day, six British destroyers attacked ten German destroyers off Narvik.
Two German destroyers were sunk in this attack and by 12th
April, the remaining eight were sunk by a larger British force led by the
battleship ‘Warspite’.

The Norwegian army was made ready to
fight the Germans. When Hitler had demanded that the Norwegians surrender, the
Norwegian reply stated “We will not submit voluntarily: the struggle is
already in progress.” However, the Norwegian army was less than fully prepared
for the invasion. As the Germans captured key ports and coastal cities, many
army commanders moved their units further inland to take advantage of Norway’s
rugged interior. Regardless of this, once the German army had organised itself,
its progress was fast. By April 13th, just four days after the
invasion started, the Germans had moved 70 miles out of Oslo and had captured
Halden in the south-east of the city and Kongsberg, 55 miles to the south-west
of Oslo. By April 20th, eleven days into the campaign, the German
army had advanced 180 miles from the capital. The Norwegians put their faith in
help from the British and French armies arriving in an effort to stem the
advance of the Germans.

Originally, British planning had sought
to establish bases at Narvik and Trondheim. However, the organisation around a
landing in Norway had been fraught with problems. Troops in bases at Rosyth and
the Clyde had embarked, disembarked and re-embarked so that stores had been lost
in the process. Also little field artillery and armour was carried on board. So
when the British army sailed it was not well ordered. The first British troops,
led by Major-General Mackesy landed at Harstad, off Narvik, on April 15th.
Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl of Cork and Orrery, commanded the Royal Navy
around Narvik. Both Cork and Mackesy differed on what to do once British troops
had landed in Harstad – in the Lofoten Islands and inadequate as a base for
such an operation. Earl Cork wanted an immediate attack on Narvik before German
forces built up there, while Mackesy wanted a more slow and deliberate campaign.
By the time a decision on how to proceed had been made, April had moved on to
May.

Why was Mackesy so reticent? He knew
that British troops, professionals or not, were not trained to operate in the
harsh conditions they found in the north of Norway. He wanted his men to have
time to get used to the conditions they found themselves in. While this was
happening, the Norwegians in Narvik had to bear the brunt of the fighting
against Germany’s mountain troops led by General Dietl.

A major landing at Trondheim was
cancelled when the Joint Planning Staff expressed their concerns about it –
despite the support for such an operation by Winston
Churchill, then Chairman of the Military Co-ordination Committee.

Instead of a major landing by the Allies
at Trondheim, smaller landings were made north and south of the city at Namsos
and Andalsnes respectively. The idea was that the Allied units would then move
against Trondheim itself in a pincer movement. The 146th Infantry
Brigade landed at Namsos on April 16th and the 148th
Infantry Brigade landed at Andalsnes on April
on April 18th. At both landing spots, the British joined up
with Norwegian forces.

On April 21st, the Germans
attacked the 148th in strength. The 146th had already
encountered German troops and both brigades suffered. The Germans had trained
troops specifically for war in the mountains and they were suitably equipped.
The British were also using Territorial Army troops in Norway who were not a
match for the Germans. From April 21st on, the British had to
withdraw from the positions they held. On May 2nd, British troops
were re-embarking at Namsos and withdrawing from Norway.

British troops captured
near Trondheim

Three things had forced the Cabinet and
the Chiefs-of-Staff to withdraw from Norway.

Ø
The British troops in Norway were all from
infantry units and other units with different skills were needed in Norway,
particularly artillery units.

Ø
The Germans threatened to cut off the British
troops in Norway – loosing so many men would have had serious consequences,
both militarily and psychologically, at such an early stage of the war.

Ø
The Germans dominated the air giving them
complete superiority in both aerial attack and defence. Britain only had access
to long range Blenheim bombers and fighters carried on Britain's aircraft
carriers. The Fleet Air Arm's Skuas which had succeeded in attacking the 'Königsberg'
had been pushed to the very limits of their endurnace. German fighters and
bombers could fly from the relative security of their bases in northern Denmark.
Refueling and rearming them was an easy process. German planes could spend time
over Norway while the planes that Britain had could not - an ironic turnaround
compared to the Battle of Britain.

On April 28th, the British
commander in Trondheim, General Paget, decided that evacuation was the only
option left to the British. This evacuation left Narvik as the only centre of
Allied opposition to the German invasion. The Earl of Cork was appointed overall
commander of the Allied forces around Narvik. However, Cork faced one major
obstacle – the German troops freed up in the southern sectors of Norway, could
now help the German troops around Narvik. In this northern sector, Hurricane
fighter planes were sent to protect ground troops. The Hurricane was more than a
match for the German fighter planes in the region but the damage had already
been done.

The German advance throughout Norway was
relentless. The campaign in Western Europe was also unfolding and at the end of
May, the British Cabinet decided on a withdrawal from the whole of Norway. King
Haakon of Norway was embarked with his government on June 7th at
Tromsö onto the cruiser ‘Devonshire’ and by June 9th the
campaign was over.

By
the standards of World War Two, the campaign in Norway was
small. 1,335 Norwegians were killed or wounded, 1,869 British were killed or
wounded and 533 French and Polish troops were killed or wounded. The Germans
lost 5,660 killed or wounded of whom 1,317 were killed on land with nearly 2,500
being killed at sea. The speed with which Germany conquered Norway was to set a
marker for the attack on Western Europe. Britain's failure in Norway was to also
have major political consequences with the resignation of the Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain who was replaced by Winston
Churchill.